In this post, I just want to talk about the Kraken, Leviathan, and Bitcoin ETFs.
The Kraken
My first memory of a Kraken in the financial market is the year I entered the Philippine Stock Market. Traders are afraid of this monster for it symbolizes someone or an institution with unlimited capital. Whether they exist or not, that is beside the point. It was a popular belief then that if you trade against a Kraken, your doom is certain.
Enough for that analogy in the stock market. This time, the name Kraken is used to describe a cryptocurrency exchange.
Based on the summary provided by https://chat.openai.com/, a Kraken is described as:
A legendary creature depicted as a giant octopus or squid. Its fearsome power lies in its size, tentacles, strength, intelligence, and mythical abilities, making it a creature capable of wreaking havoc and inspiring terror.
To use this legendary monster to describe a crypto exchange would mean that the power of such a platform would be unstoppable.
As to the size of this centralized cryptocurrency exchange, here are the numbers that caught my attention:
It claims to serve over 8 M traders and institutional clients in approximately 200 countries.
More than 120 coins are supported on the platform
Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/
Just yesterday, a bigger monster threatened this giant squid in the identities of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Such a threat reminds me of an even bigger and more powerful ancient monster of biblical proportion, the Leviathan.
Leviathan
The civil government is often labeled as "Leviathan” due to its powerful and all-encompassing authority. This idea of Leviathan originates from the biblical Book of Job and was later expanded upon by philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his work "Leviathan."
In the Bible, the Leviathan is depicted as a sea monster, a metaphorical creature representing chaos and disorder. It symbolizes a force that threatens the stability and well-being of society.
Ironically, Hobbes’ use of the term is the exact opposite of its biblical representation. Applying the idea to the civil government, Leviathan instead of representing chaos is now a powerful entity to maintain social order and prevent the breakdown of society.
Following this logic, it appears that the solution provided by the cryptocurrency space to address the current exclusionary character of the existing economic and monetary system is considered by the proponents of this new idea of Leviathan as chaotic. No wonder, the popular rhetoric now that justifies regulation and excessive interference on the part of civil government is that if cryptocurrency is left alone on its own, investors will be harmed by market manipulators and unethical practices of crypto custodians and centralized exchanges.
However, what happened yesterday exposed the true color of this Leviathan. The protection of investors is the farthest thing in their minds. That’s for real. Their real intent is taxation. And they are willing to do any possible means just to lay their hands on the outcome of your creativity and hard work. This is their definition of protection and security. Freedom is the next farthest thing in their minds. What they can only offer to investors and freedom-loving people is nothing but lip service. Their action shows their real intention.
This to me appears like a police state. Imagine, they order Kraken to surrender all the personal financial information of all users including “names, birthdates, taxpayer identification numbers, residences, phone numbers, and email addresses.” They are doing this to investigate users who have underreported their taxes. These people are greedy. I am now tempted to think that Leviathan is nothing but a “Giant Leech” that extracts blood non-stop from its victims. And yet, they call it “public service” for the sake of the “common good.”
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/kraken-ordered-by-court-disclose-user-data-irs-tax-compliance
Bitcoin ETF
Anyhow, regardless of the pretension and deceit, the entertainment continues. In SEC Entertainment and Bitcoin ETF, I mentioned that we still don’t know the names of other Bitcoin ETFs that will be introduced by Invesco and Wisdom Tree. Yesterday we received an update from Bloomberg that gave us new names of several financial firms that submitted their own Bitcoin ETF applications.
As you can see, in addition to BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, and Wisdom Tree, four new names joined the Bitcoin ETF bandwagon. All in all, we now have eight Bitcoin ETFs. I think, there is still uncertainty whether the SEC will accept these applications or not, but as for me, I expect that their number will continue to grow in the coming days.
Ok, that’s all I can say about the Kraken, Leviathan, and Bitcoin ETF.
Grace and peace!
Note: This is the transcript I used in the 3Speak video where I talked about The Kraken, Leviathan, and the Bitcoin ETF.